INTERIOR DECORATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22481, 27 July 1936, Page 3

INTERIOR DECORATION

POPULARITY IN AMERICA AN ART AND A PROFESSION "Interior decorating as an art is becoming increasingly well established in the United States," said Mrs. E. Hasenian, who passed through Auckland on Saturday by the Monterey en route to San Francisco. Mrs. Haseman is returning to the United States after a two months' visit to New Zealand and Australia. Discussing interior decorating in the United States, Mrs. Haseman said it had become recognised, not only as an art, but also as a profession. It had opened up an unsuspected avenue of expression and employment for a great many women. Naturally, most women had ideas, of their own for furnishing their homes, but even they found the interior decorator could make the most of their ideas, coordinate them with art and practicability, and produce a harmonising whole. There were other women, too, who had very little idea of how to furnish a home both comfortably and artistically, and they relied almostt completely upon the taste and ability of the interior decorator. Too many women collected odd "bits" in a haphazard way without thinking of whether the "bits" harmonised, Mrs Haseman said.

The United States was the interior ( decorator's paradise. Although there was not a great deal of family or home life there, the women, from the wealthiest to the poorest, were very houseproud. The poor people, of course, did not engage decorators, but possessed, on the whole, a natural taste in furnishings. Ingenuity, combined with what they learned from magazines and pictures, helped them to make their surroundings attractive. Tho average American woman, however, generally obtained a decorator's advice about her furnishings.

Mrs. Haseman thought there was much similarity between Australian and American homes. New Zealand gave her the impression that, like the English, the people liked to cling to their old houses. She thought it rather remarkable, however, that, while the new Australian and New Zealand houses were being closely modelled upon the American bungalow and the stucco Spanish style, the Americans' ideal home was modelled on the lines of old English buildings, from the outside at least. The average American built the bungalow type ot house, without halls and passages, labour-saving both in its construction and equipment, with careful regard for the placing of doors and windows and without surrounding fences, walls or hedges. There were more "styled" houses in the United States than anywhere else in the world. In every city there were several houses built to a special style and resembling as far as was practicable the traditional English home, the Spanish, old Morocco, French, Italian, Chinese and period architecture. Mrs. Haseman was surprised that, with such excellent soil at their disposal and so many kinds of flowers the New Zealand women did not take more interest in gardening. When they did possess gardens they seemed to leave most of the actual work in it either to a gardener or to their husbands. In the United States the reverse was the rule. Every home, no matter how small, possessed its front plot of garden, unfenccd, and flowering the entire year round. So interested in this hobby were

the American women that they not only (lid most of the work of it themselves, but also formed gardening clubs, where they attended lectures, compared experiences, exchanged seeds and plants and gained advice. They experimented with (lowers and shrubs and were very enthusiastic about rock-gardening, as most of thoir homes were surrounded by low, carefully tended and intricately built rockeries. Further evidence of the American woman's love of flowers and gardening was to be found in the cities, where g«iil.Y painted window boxes adorned the many flats and apartment houses. These bright touches of colour with flowers of all descriptions added a picturesque touch to many of the tal 1-storeyed buildings.